Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/303

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258 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., i, 1899

the Hopi pueblos, and swarmed into the valley north of Wala, 1 capturing many sheep which they drove to the hills north of the mesa. 1 The Tewa attacked them at that place, and the Ute war- riors killed all the sheep which they had captured, making a pro- tecting rampart of their carcasses. On this account the place is now called Sikwitukwi (" Meat pinnacle"). The Tewa killed all but two of their opponents who were taken captives and sent home with the message that the Bears had come, and if any of their tribe ever returned as hostiles they would all be killed. From that time Ute invasions ceased.

According to another good authority in Tewa lore, the Asa people left " Kaekibi," near Abiquiu, in northern New Mexico, about the time the other Tewa left Tcewadi. They traveled together rapidly for some time, but separated at Laguna, the Asa taking the southern route, via Zufti. The Tewa clans arrived first (?) at Tusayan and waited for the Asa in the sand-hills near Isba. Both groups, according to this authority, took part in the Ute fight at Sikwitukwi, and when they returned the village chief of Walpi gave the Asa people for their habitation that portion of the mesa top northeast of the Tewakiva, while the present site of Hano was assigned to the Tewa clans. During a famine the Asa moved to Tiibka (Canyon Tsegi, or " Chelly "), where they planted the peach trees that are still to be seen. The ruined walls east of Hano are a remnant of the pueblo abandoned by them. The Asa intermarried with the Navaho and lost their language. When they returned to the East Mesa the Hopi assigned to them for their houses that part of Walpi at the head of the stairway trail on condition that they would defend it." *

1 The gap in the East Mesa just at the head of the trail before one enters Hano. The pueblo of Walpi derived its name from this gap.

9 Their nomadic enemies raided so near the pueblo of the East Mesa that the priests were unable to visit their shrines without danger. The idol of Talatumsi, used in the New-fire ceremony, was removed from its shrine north of Wala on that account.

  • Later, as the outcome of a petty quarrel near the middle of the eighteenth cen-

tury, the Asa women moved to Sitcomovi which they founded. At present there is only one woman of this clan in Walpi, and no women of the Honani, both of which clans are strong in Sitcomovi.

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